Improved knife for opening tin cans



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES A. RUFF, OF PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND.

IMPROVED KNIFE FOR OPENING TIN CANS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 46.709, dated March 7, 1865; antedated February 23, 1865.

To all whom it may concern.:

' Be it known that l, CHARLES A. RUFF, of the city and county of Providence, and State of Rhode Island, have invented a new, useful, and Improved Knife for Opening Sealed Boxes or Cans of Fish, Fruit, Vegetables, Snc.; land I do hereby declare that the same is described and represented in the following specification and drawings.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I will proceed to describe its construction and the mode of using it, referring to the drawings, in which the same letters indicate like parts in each of the figures. l

Figures l and 2 are drawings of the improved knife, one showing it at a right angle to the other.

The nature of my invention and improvments consists in providing a suitably-shaped knife for opening sealed cans of sh, fruit, Ste., with a fulcrum to rest on the tin box or can being cut, so that the cutting can be performed much easier and with greater facility. This fulcrum may be provided with a flange to gage the distance cut from the corner or edge of the can, and also with an adjusting-screw in the ange to vary the distance eut from the edge of the can or box opened.

In the accompanying drawings, A is a knife, which may be made in the form, shown, or in such other form as will answer the purpose, with a shank, B, inserted in the handle C. D is a piece of metal, made in the form shown in the drawings, and perforated to receive to receive the knife A, and is bent or curved, as

shown in Fig. 1, and its narrow en'dinserted in the handle O behind the shank of the knife A, so that when the knife A is inserted perpendicularly through the tin and the handle tipped back the pieceor fulcrum D rocks on the tin, while the knife cuts it. After tipping the handle back and making a cut itis raised up perpendieularly and moved forward in the cut and tipped again, and by gradually turning the knife when the cutis made a circular hole may be cut in the tin can or box to be opened.

In order to make the cut at a uniform distance from the edge or corner of the can or boX ,I make a flange, E, on the back 'of the piece D, which flange works right down by the edge or corner of the can, and gages the distance of the cut from the edge; and to vary or adjust the distance of the cut from the cornerot' the can I put a set-screw, F, through the flange E, so that by turning the screw the cut may be adjusted as desired.

I believe I have described and represented my improved knife for opening tin cans or boxes so as to enable any person skilled in the art to make and use it without furtherinven- 

